Page 40 of Cora
An idea sprang fully-formed into his mind. If she was still that good after neglecting to practice for eleven years, she could get back to performance-ready in no time. He could erase their fraught history and secure her a spot as one of London’s most refined ladies with one simple performance. The hard part would be getting her to agree, but that was no reason to hold off.
Gideon liked the way his risky bets had been paying off lately. He was on a winning streak. He’d forced Cora to the altar, acquired her brother’s bank, and she was none the wiser.
Her breasts were pillowy and sweet against his chest. Gideon slid his palm down the curve of her hip, not low enough to be vulgar, though he wanted to. Right now, he wanted this sweetness more.
“I don’t care if you hit every note off-key. I love watching you play. I love the way you close your eyes and tilt your chin just so. It makes me want to kiss you.”
“Such poetry from such a man,” she teased breathily. Her palm slid down his back, confident. Nothing of the demure maiden about her. Gideon liked the way she touched him. All these years he’d imagined her being missish and shy. In truth, the reality of her was far more enticing.
“Tell me something?”
“You can ask,” she said. “I may or may not answer.”
“Why didn’t you wait?”
“Wait for whom?”
She arched one eyebrow. Gideon swallowed. He had just admitted too much.
“For me,” he gritted out. Her other eyebrow rose in twin arcs of surprise.
“Gideon, you seemed content to humiliate me and then let me rot in obscurity forever. Did it never once occur to you that I wasn’t going to drift through the rest of my days like a wraith, waiting for some man to rescue me from a life of loneliness?”
Her tone was light and teasing, but her words were tinged with an undertone of deep hurt.
“As a matter of fact, it didn’t,” he said ruefully. “Once I had you safe?—”
“Safe?”
Cora pulled back, but Gideon wasn’t about to let her go. He tugged her hard against his front. “Yes, safe. Through no fault of your own, you were a target. I acted in the only way I could.”
She scoffed. “And then you let me molder for more than eleven years.”
“But you didn’t molder,” he said, knowing he’d already revealed too much. “You ripened. You grew. You had space and time to figure out who and what you wanted to be.”
Again, she made a dismissive noise, but it was softer this time. Less convincing.
“I wanted to shine in Society,” she said wistfully. “Be important, you know? I wanted to be admired. I thought they would at least give me a chance, despite my parentage. After you ruined me, I decided Eryx was foolish to want their approval, but at least he was honest about what he wanted.”
Gideon pressed a kiss to her throat. Her robe slid down the slope of her shoulder and he tasted her there, too.
“You will win every heart and mind in theton,” he murmured against her skin. “You will dazzle them with your wit and beauty. You will take London by storm.”
Once she won over the starchiest scions of Society, she would rake in money for Wentworth’s bank, too. What a fool Eryx had been not to leverage his sister’s warmth and kindness to advance his business—but then, he had been fishing in the kind of waters that teemed with sharks. Now those sharks were being dealt with, either by calling in debts they couldn’t repay and forcing them out, or by making clear their lines of credit were subject to cleaning up the less savory aspects of their enterprises.
Countess Oreste remained a problem he could not yet solve, but he would. The instant she was back, he would ensure that scandal of a fake charity house she ran closed forever. Unlike Wilder, he owed the woman nothing. But until she returned from wherever she was hiding, there was nothing to be done.
Nothing, except his wife.
Cora’s low moan as he sucked her breast deep into his mouth sent blood racing to his cock. She spiked her hands through his hair and clutched him to her.
From there, clothes dropped. His cravat. His waistcoat. Her robe, followed by his shirt, leaving only the thin silk of her nightgown as a barrier between their heated skin. Their kisses were hurried, but languid, suspended on a wire of tension between wanting to savor her and throw her onto the bed and bury himself inside her. Relieve this need that had been growing ever since their wedding.
Granted, he’d also imagined taking her over his knee and spanking her on more than one occasion, not necessarily for pleasure. Cora didn’t only spark with the bright fire of a diamond. She sparked withhim,like two prizefighters in a boxing ring. She challenged him. Made him work for her approval.
No woman had ever done that before.
Every fantasy of gently initiating Cora into the world of sex he’d entertained for the past decade went flying out of his mind, replaced with a rush of increasingly creative and filthy things they could do together. She had gained some knowledge during her time in exile, and he was suddenly eager to exploit it. Expand upon it. For as much as Cora thought she knew, he had more to teach her about sex.
